Are Facebook Ads really becoming more expensive?

I was being interviewed for a podcast when this question popped up. And it's a debate a lot of people have today.

Is it really expensive?

Is it really so expensive to advertise on Facebook today? Are costs per click over the roof? Are we paying more to reach fewer people?

I've been advertising on Facebook ever since they introduced it. It's been years since I launched my first campaign. I've been here since the beginning.

Honestly? Facebook advertising changed A LOT during these years. The platform has become more advanced, Facebook released some amazing features I can't imagine advertising without, it has NEVER been more effective to advertise on Facebook. You can track every single thing and directly match your conversions.

But one thing that happened as a consequence of this rapid and fantastic change is that a lot of people decided to jump on this bandwagon and try Facebook advertising themselves.

And then ... imbalance.

That created an imbalance in the ecosystem -- while the number of Facebook advertisers is growing exponentially, Facebook is having trouble fitting all of their demands. We all want better Reach. We all want to target engaging shoppers. Now imagine what happens when there are hundreds of thousands of advertisers after a similar goal.

That said, Facebook was always an advocate and a go-to advertising channel for small businesses. Why? Because there are the same rules for everyone. Whether you're a corporation with millions to spend on ads or a small business that's just starting out. I worked with both. And we all followed the same rules.

Facebook wants to stay that way. They don't want to scare the small businesses of the world away.

That's why the host asking that question was partly wrong.

It's not that Facebook Ads are becoming more expensive. It's not that we've seen a significant increase in costs per click or a decrease in overall reach. We haven't.

But what we did see is that it's getting more difficult and expensive to START.

Not because the ads themselves would be more expensive. But because the advertisers are becoming more advanced and as they do that, it's getting more difficult for beginners to effectively reach their target audience by successfully competing against their competitor's ads.

While competitors have already launched hundreds of experiments, A/B tested hundreds of ads, the beginner has little clue about what works and what doesn't.

A few years ago, that wasn't such a big problem, because even though everyone virtually had competitors, the advertising space wasn't as crowded as today. But with the number of Facebook advertisers still growing every day, this isn't changing.

So what can you do?

If you ever plan on using Facebook advertising for your business, start learning about it TODAY. Start experimenting with different ads, different campaigns, investing just a couple of dollars into ads here and there.

You don't need to go all in. But you have to create the advantage you need if you want to exponentially grow your business with the help of Facebook ads and reach new customers faster.

There literally isn't a better time to start learning more about Facebook Ads.